


The Unlikely Hero

by SunlightOnTheWater



Series: Pathways [1]
Category: Supernatural, The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Childhood Trauma, Gen, POV Sam Winchester, Young Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-11
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 12:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2110500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunlightOnTheWater/pseuds/SunlightOnTheWater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The demon comes much earlier than originally planned for Sam.<br/>Or the one where Riddick accidentally ends up playing guardian to two traumatized children.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Unlikely Hero

_The demon came when Sam was ten. It left nothing but blood and screams behind._

* * *

Kyra knew the newcomer to Crematoria. Sam had watched them exchange words from a distance, too far away to truly hear what had been said between them, and now she was pacing angrily, hands twisting tightly and curly hair flying around her face. Sam sat silently, waiting for her to get out whatever she needed to say. When he had come to Crematoria four months ago, just turned thirteen, the fifteen year old Kyra had taken to him immediately. To the other inmates he was a strange, weedy, and sallow child in prison for the brutal murder of three people, two of which were related to him, but Kyra had seen an ally. Together the two of them slept in shifts, guarded each other's backs, and kept each other as sane as possible despite their nightmares. Now he had the feeling that he was closer to the truth of Kyra's past than ever before. Therefore he waited, knowing that she would speak when she was ready.

"How could he come back?" she demanded at last. "After abandoning me how could he come here?" She was pleading with him by the end, eyes wide and confused. Sam wasn't sure what to say. His own world was nothing but blood and nightmares now, left behind and tainted with the smells of sulfur and blood. He could do nothing to rectify Kyra's. She returned to her frantic pacing as if that would help calm the turmoil in her mind. "I was running away," she said at last. "Running from everything I'd ever known pretending to be a boy so people wouldn't pity me and I happened to pick the wrong ship." She let out a bark of bitter laughter at that. Sam understood the laugh; it was the sound of someone whose luck was so far from good that they had to laugh or they would sob.

"What happened?" he asked softly, trying to stave off the rising hysteria he could see on Kyra's face. She had never been so out of control to him before. Instead she had always kept her emotions hidden behind a solid mask of fury and indifference. Now he could see the fear and pain behind it.

"We crash landed," Kyra continued, her voice wavering but her expression steadier. "On a planet with one eclipse every twenty-two years. That's when the monsters come out. They killed most the crew. Only three of us got out alive. One was a holy man, one was me."

"And the last one?"

"Riddick."

"Riddick?" Sam questioned, stunned by the sheer amount of emotion in Kyra's voice. There was adoration and awe, hatred and betrayal, loss and pain. This was someone Kyra had known well enough to adore.

" _Him_ ," Kyra said, motioning with her head in the general direction the newcomer had been. "He said he was a convict. Richard B. Riddick, convict. That's how he introduced himself." She let out a bitter laugh. Sam wanted to reach out a hand and squeeze her shoulder but he didn't. He knew better. "And now he's back here like nothing ever happened."

"I'm sorry," Sam told her and she huffed, sitting down next to him as if her outburst had drained her completely. Moments later she drifted off to sleep with her head leaning against his shoulder. Hours later she woke and allowed him to sleep and prepare for what was to come.

* * *

_"You brought this down on them Sammy boy," Azazel told him, hands dripping with blood just like the walls of the room around him._

* * *

No one had ever escaped the slam on Crematoria. It was a triple-max prison drilled into the surface of one of the most inhospitable planets in any system and was therefore thought of as inescapable. Kyra was sure that Riddick was going to do it. Sam knew the name, knew the reputation of the convict who had saved his sister-in-arms' life, and he knew that impossible only meant slightly more surprising when it actually happened. He believed her. Together they waited for the moment when it would happen.

They weren't the only ones who were waiting. Ceryll Cantaglia, known as The Guv on the floors of Crematoria, and his friend Sybar were waiting as well. The Guv had been incarcerated for a number of charges including extortion and murder. He'd finally been brought in eighteen years ago for vehicular manslaughter. Sometimes, when he was feeling particularly nostalgic, he told stories of his wife Ellen. Sybar was his closest friend and had been brought to Crematoria twenty-one years ago for a count of murder and under several extortion charges. His past was mostly a mystery but his loyalty was unquestionably to The Guv. Neither of the friends were harmless but they had not acted out toward Kyra and Sam so the two held no ill will towards them.

When the time came, Sam followed Kyra to the land above. The mercs were dead, all but one, and few prisoners had dared to step beyond the known confines of the slam. Ceryll and Sybar had, along with a few of their loyal followers, and together they peered around the room. "Not all the guards are here," The Guv announced as Kyra and Sam lingered in the shadows. They were the youngest inmates of the slam and both knew it was not wise to get within arms reach of those that were older and stronger than them. "Find them. They're here somewhere."

"Don't bother." Riddick's voice was a rumble of distant thunder, low and dangerous. He stepped out of the shadows with a smirk on his face. "Guards ain't there. They figured out that the Necros are comin' for me. Plan was to clean the bank, ghost the mercs, break wide for the tunnel. And then somebody got a lucky shot off with this rocket launcher here and took out the sled. Guards took off on foot but rigged the door so no one could follow. They'll take the one ship in the hanger and leave everyone else to die."

"How come you know all this shit?" the lone surviving merc demanded as he pulled himself out of the hole the guards used to lower down new prisoners.

"Cause it was my plan," Riddick replied simply. That was when The Guv turned his attention upwards.

"You can't be thinking that," Sybar protested but Sam recognized the look in The Guv's eyes. It was the look of a man who had seen his one chance a escape and was going to grab it no matter the consequences. He had worn that look himself once; it was a point in his life he tried not to think about it.

"Yes," The Guv replied steadily. "We can go across the top and have a chance to beat them to the ship. It's our only chance."

"They'll be only one speed," Riddick said, voice filled with dark humor and menace. "Mine." That settled it. Moments later they were above on the surface of Crematoria.

* * *

_The screams of his family followed Sam into the depths of a place so horrible that it made a Nazi prisoner camp look like a nice holiday._

* * *

They ran, following Riddick like ducklings after their mother. Sam and Kyra stuck together, finding themselves at the front of the group. Because they were smaller than the others they were able to fun faster and keep closer to Riddick's brutal pace. That was when they lost him. "Riddick?" Kyra called, at first sounding irritated. When there came no response she screamed, " _Riddick!_ " As if in answer, Riddick's black cape like jacket dropped down in front them, the man it belonged to smirking down at them and beckoning with one hand. They followed, Sam keeping one eye on the horizon and the approaching blaze of the sun. He knew that by the time the sunlight reached them it would be far too late for any of them to survive, save perhaps Riddick who had a reputation of beating the odds.

Riddick stopped abruptly, motioning them in front of him. Kyra moved to follow, Sam right on her heels, when Riddick held out an arm to stop her. "Wait," he said, eyes fixed on something in the rain of ash that fell almost like snow around them. It took Sam a moment to focus on the peephole rising from the ground. "Good boy," Riddick praised mockingly and Sam startled, Kyra shifting defensively in front of him. Riddick focused on Kyra curiously for a moment, then turned and made his way towards the dome, motioning Sam and Kyra by him. They bolted by the peephole in time for Riddick to hammer to guard peering out. The falling guard managed to get one shot into the back of another convict, Sam pulling Kyra back just in time and the two toppling to the ground. Kyra rolled to her feet and lunged for the two guards who had scrambled up to see what was going on. She killed one and Riddick disposed of the other one. "What was that?" Sam heard the infamous criminal asked Kyra. "You don't care if you live or die?"

"If I kill them first, not really," Kyra snapped back, flipping her hair scornfully.

Riddick muttered something that had Kyra studying him curiously and then barked, " _Keep moving!_ " Sam jumped and bolted like a rabbit, Kyra catching up a moment later. They ran together, Kyra only half paying attention, until they reached a cliff face rising up before them. The Guv and Sybar were already climbing but the third convict was staring up at it as if he had been presented with Mount Everest. Kyra tugged Sam by the man and the two began to climb. The man followed behind them and Riddick easily passed them. He climbed like some kind of wild cat, sleek and strong and deadly, perfectly suited for the environment around him. Sam, Kyra, and the other convicts made slower and more laborious progress.

The Guv reached the top, Sybar several feet behind him, and Sam began to get a terrible feeling that something was going to go horribly wrong. "Kyra," he heard Riddick demanded but, from somewhere above the thirteen year old, Kyra ignored him. There was a moment of silence and then, "Kyra!"

" _What_?" Kyra shrieked back at him impatiently.

" _Get that ass moving!_ " Riddick bellowed back and Sam, glancing over his shoulder, realized exactly what was wrong. The sun was coming, and coming fast. Sybar was at the top now and Kyra was scrambling, confidant in the fact that Sam was right behind her. He was up until the point where the third convict lunged at him.

Sam was startled by black eyes and the overwhelming smell of sulfur. The demon inside the convict's body cackled at him. "Time to stop running Sammy," it cackled and Sam kicked out at the man, ignoring the stinging in his side. This particular convict had possessed a shiv of some sort and the demon had stabbed it lightly into Sam's side when it had lunged. Now blood was trickling down underneath his shirt and his palms, suddenly coated with nervous sweat, were slipping on the jagged rock he was clinging to. The demon hissed and swung upwards and Sam scrambled up a bit, feet slipping and swinging into empty air. " _Sam!_ " he heard Kyra shriek but he was struggling to regain his footing.

The demon was fast approaching when the sun lit them both. "You feel that?" Sam hissed at the demon who was right behind him. "That's the sun and in about a minute, maybe a minute a half we'll both be incinerated."

"Not me," the demon replied with a sneer, eyes lighting up at the waver in Sam's voice when he spoke. Then the convict's head tilted back and the black smoke of the demon's true form outside of Hell exited it's mouth. Sam caught a glimpse of the convict's stricken face before he swung quickly into the shelter of a hollow between rocks. The heat was already growing and Sam's sweat was no longer just from fear.

" _Sam!_ " Kyra screamed again and he tilted his head back to glance up at her, smiling weakly when he saw she was safe.

"It's okay," he called back to her. "Everything's going to be okay Kyra." He watched long enough to see Riddick push her back from the ledge. Then he stood from where he had slumped against the rock, turning to face the coming sun. What happened next he was uncertain if anyone besides perhaps Kyra could have predicted. Riddick swung down from the top just before the sun and grabbed him by the arm. The two landed hard on the rock, Kyra crouched in the shadows with wide, watering eyes.

Sam didn't fight as Riddick dragged him into the shadows. Kyra was on him in a minute, clinging to him tightly despite his full body flinch. For a moment, trapped in heat and pain and blood, Sam was in Hell. Then it passed and Kyra was crying salty tears against his shoulder. It was the only time Sam had ever seen the fifteen year old cry. "I thought I'd lost you," she whispered, still clinging to him.

"I couldn't die," Sam whispered back, pulling up what bravado he had left. "Those would have been horrible last words." Kyra snorted softly, wiped her eyes, and pulled away as Riddick snapped at them to get moving. Kyra grabbed his hand as they ran, fingers clinging tight to him as if to reassure himself that they were still alive.

* * *

_He lost all sense of the world in that place until an ordinary human face became the most terrifying sight of all._

* * *

They arrived at the hanger too late, not to beat the guards but to beat the Necromongers coming for Riddick. All of the prisoners on Crematoria had heard whispers of what these fanatics were capable and Sam did not look forward to discovering the truth first hand. "My guess is we've got maybe three minutes before the sun hits us again," Kyra said. They were crouched behind a ridge of rock as the Necros searched the ground before the closed hanger. They would have to take out members of the most brutal army any system had ever seen to escape the planet.

"Wait," Riddick murmured as the others readied themselves.

"Are we going to do this or not?" Kyra demanded and Riddick held out a hand to halt her.

"Just wait," he said, eyes pinning her where she was from behind dark goggles. It struck Sam what they were waiting for just moments before the guards raised the hanger door. The chaos that exploded drew the Necros' attention away from the escaped convicts. "Remember your favorite game?" Riddick asked Kyra and Sam knew exactly what was going to come out of her mouth before she spoke.

"Who's he better killer?" she replied.

"Let's play." Riddick was over the ridge before any of the others could even move. 

Sam had killed people before, demons were at least good for that much, but he hadn't wanted to do so ever again. Kyra sprang into the fight with a kind of reckless abandon, as if she were trying to prove something to her idol. The Guv and Sybar sprang in with the kind of ferocity of desperate men who knew that if they failed at this they would return to the rotting hell-hole they had come from. Sam hung back. Fear made his hands sweat and a kind of sickening anticipation, the taste of sugar sweet blood and ash on his tongue, made his hands shake. That was when one of the Necros focused on him.

It was a squat sort of creature, hunchbacked and twisted, with what looked like an old fashion oval diving mask attached to its face. It scrambled up the hill on hands and feet. Without thinking Sam pulled the shiv Kyra had made for him when he'd first arrived at Crematoria and stabbed it deep into the creature's throat. It gurgled when he pulled the shiv free and blood gushed, sticky and hot, over his hand. For a moment he wanted nothing more than to lick his fingers clean. Then his stomach revolted and he vomited over the ground, shiv falling from numb fingers.

He lost himself somewhere. Besides the demon in the convict, there had been no demons on Crematoria. Sam had suspected that it reminded them far too much of Hell. Right now that worked against him as the flashback flowed over them. He moaned, curling in on himself, and Kyra screaming his name turned to Lily, her eyes wide with terror and her face streaked with tears. He keened, high pitched and agonized. A hand, rough and strong, grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked him hard. " _Move_ ," Riddick snarled at him and Sam stumbled into the mess below him, fighting Hell as best he could. One of the Necromongers struck him and he stumbled to his knees, collapsing on the blazing ground. He fought to get air back into his lungs as Kyra screamed again.

"No," he moaned, low and soft and terrified as a hallucination of Ava came stumbling at him with bloody hands outstretched. Her mouth was moving and most of the left side of her head was a mass of burned flesh. Then it clarified and he saw Kyra kick a Necro hard in the chest as she struggled to get to him. He tried to pull himself only to have Riddick crouch next to him and shove him down.

"Stay," came the sharp order and then Riddick was moving. Sam did as he was told, vision blurring with tears as the world around him refused to stay put.

* * *

_That was how the killing started. One human child at a time._

* * *

He must have passed out because the next thing he was aware of was being dragged. Through blurry vision he saw The Guv and Sybar lying dead. The Guv had a burned hole through his chest and Sybar's head was turned completely around. The Necros were talking and Kyra and Riddick were nowhere to be seen. Sam wanted to move but he couldn't get his limbs to work. A voice above him asked something. "No," came the swift response. "I will be remaining here to ensure that you have done your job." Footsteps moved away and whoever was dragging Sam resumed his pulling. Sam was dropped then, slumped on moderately cooler ground. He could hear the sound of a ship taking off and then silence.

His eyes slowly adjusted and he found himself staring at Riddick's slumped body. For a moment the reality of the situation eluded him. His brain registered the facts but his mind refused to put the pieces together. Then it hit him. _Riddick was dead_. Riddick was dead, Kyra was missing, and he was here. Again. Hell hit him hard and the moan that slipped out of his mouth was nothing short of an animal's cry of pain. His body heaved, trying to bring up what little was left in his stomach, and his face was streaked with hot tears that stung his eyes. The clink of metal drew his attention and he forced himself upright, turning slowly to see a man in a long robe standing there. He was carefully removing the metal ornaments that decorated him. His eyes settled on Sam's and he smiled slightly. "I though you might still be alive."

Hell washed away from Sam's mind with a slight hiss as he focused on the puzzle presented to him. By all rights the Necromonger should have killed him by now but hadn't. Why? "He's not dead either," the man said, motioning to Riddick. "Though commander Vaako will probably report him as such."

"Kyra?" Sam forced himself to ask. She had been a constant by his side since he had arrived on this God forsaken planet and though part of him did not want to know her fate, the rest insisted that there was a chance that she might have survived.

"The girl? They took her with them to the Lord Marshall. She'll be converted." Sam shivered at the thought of his friend as heartless as the other Necromongers seemed to be and the man nodded. "It is a terrible fate."

"There are worse." The words spilled out of Sam's mouth unbidden and the man appeared concerned. Hell whispered in Sam's head but he shook it off, trying to convince muscles to allow him to rise to his feet. The Necromonger crossed the room to help him and Sam studied the man. There was a light in his eyes the other Necros had not possessed, something like a fire burning within. "Why are you here?" Sam asked.

"Because I began to question and it does not do to have a Purifier question the Necromonger ways. Had I returned to the ship with Vaako he would have slain me." Riddick stirred then and the Necromonger returned to the task of removing the last of the ornaments. "Had Vaako failed to kill you I was to deliver a message from the Lord Marshall," the Purifier informed Riddick. "He says to stay away from Helion, stay away from him, and in return you will be hunted no more. But Vaako will likely report you as dead which puts you in a unique position." He removed the silver head ornament to reveal very close cropped blonde hair beneath. Sam's hands twitched for a moment as memory tried to reach him and then stilled.

"Where's the girl?" Riddick demanded, eyes fixed on the Purifier. He had not looked at Sam once since he had awoken, though the thirteen year old doubted the man did not know he was there. Sam knew that the criminal wished he were Kyra, had taken Kyra's place. The feeling of worthlessness that roused in him was not new.

"They will take her to the Lord Marshall," the Purifier replied and Riddick studied him intensely. "The Necromonger in me warns you to stay away," the Purifier said after a moment, raising a blade in hand and showing it to Riddick. "But the Furyan in me hopes you won't listen." Then he dropped the knife on the floor, turned, and walked into the blazing heat of the sun. Riddick and Sam watched as the man burned away to nothing but a skeleton and ash, Sam with a feeling of loss in his gut. Then Riddick turned to the ship that the Purifier had left behind.

"Let me come with you," Sam blurted, mind turning to Kyra and a chance to save her from a horrible fate.

"You're a liability," came the cold reply.

"Yeah," Sam said softly, turning back toward the sun's harsh light and the skeletons that rattled in the superheated wind. He wrapped his arms around his stomach and shivered violently. "I am." Hell had broken him, crushed the pieces beyond repair. Kyra had held him together with safety pins and ragged thread but she was gone and, if he was being honest, so was he.

"Why is she so fixed on you?" Riddick had returned to take the knife when Sam glanced back and he knew eyes were fixed on him through dark goggles.

"It would be better if she wasn't," he replied instead of repeating the story Kyra had told him in whispers, the one about the little brother she hadn't been able to save. "It would be safer for her. For everyone." Hell would find Sam eventually. The presence of the demon on the surface of Crematoria had been proof enough of that. When they finally did he was already too shattered to keep them from using him as they would, making him into their twisted Boy King with only one goal in mind. What he had run from would be achieved and sooner rather than later.

He was startled by a hand on his shoulder steering him towards the ship. "She'll never forgive me if I show up without you," Riddick informed him when Sam glanced up at him in confusion. "Just stay out of the way."

* * *

_Escape became a dream, a wish of terrified children who knew the idea to be nothing but folly._

* * *

Riddick had gotten on to the Necromonger main warship in the armor of a Necromonger warrior. Sam had been meant to stay behind but at the last moment Kyra had compelled him to follow. He had quickly lost his only protection in the crowd but he was small enough that none took notice of him. He found himself in a large room where he eyes met the dead ones of the one girl he thought of as a friend. A shiver passed through him at the knowledge they were two late. Kyra had been converted.

Riddick did not seem to believe the conversion, calling her Jack and speaking to her as if she were the same girl she had been before. Then he faced the Lord Marshall. Kyra had vanished into the crowd and Sam sought her out. He knew that Riddick was able to fend for himself and Sam had come here to find Kyra. She found him instead, her eyes huge under the shadows of her black hood. "I thought you were dead," she told him in a harsh whisper. "I thought you were both dead."

"The universe would be a safer place if I were," Sam replied calmly, though his hands shook. "But I am not."

"I thought I had nothing left," she said, voice agonized.

"I understand," Sam reassured her and Riddick fell. Everything that followed was in time that seemed to slow. Kyra lunged through the crowd at the Lord Marshall and he backhanded her. Sam saw the way she would fall, saw the spike she would in forced onto moments before Kyra began to move and his hand flung out. She stopped as if striking a wall just before the spike that would have ended her life and fell to floor. Sam rushed to Kyra, ignoring the fight around him, and felt for a pulse. It was there, strong and steady despite the way her eyes gazed blearily at him. She was alive. He clutched her to him, sobbing softly, and a moment later she was clinging back. The crowd near them shuffled and murmured and someone dropped to the floor from a great height.

A woman's scream of anguish and defeat drew their attentions to the world around them. The Lord Marshall was dead, Riddick's blade embedded in his skull. "You keep what you kill," Kyra whispered in Sam's ear and his shivered as the legions of Necromongers around him got down on their knees. Riddick fell back onto the throne behind him and for the first time Sam saw the color of his eyes; an eerie silver. Those eyes fixed on he and Kyra as if seeing right through them for a moment. The Lord Marshall was dead.

* * *

_In the end their was a dead boy and another one who might as well be dead. He had no choice but to run._

* * *

For a moment the scene seemed frozen, as if no one dared to breathe. None of the Necromongers were certain of Riddick nor was Sam. He did not know what the now triumphant convict would do, how he would be behave. Kyra, in contrast, had steadied. She stood slowly and drew Sam to his feet. Riddick was still looking directly at them but something about his focus was more present than it had been moments before. His lips pulled up in a slight smirk and Sam clung tightly to Kyra's hand. She smiled reassuringly down at him, she stood several inches taller than he did, and then grinned at Riddick. After a moment he beckoned them forward. Kyra dragged him across the floor to where he stood, not hesitating until she reached the throne. "Welcome to the new world order," he told them with a sly smirk, beckoning to the army behind him as if he were giving them the world. And that was how one dynasty ended and another began.

* * *

_He ran then, leaving home far behind, and that was how it began._

**Author's Note:**

> When I originally set out to write this is was a story in which Riddick characters would be replaced with supernatural ones. Then it became a one-shot, and now it has began a series of a sort. I don't know where exactly it will end but hopefully you'll enjoy the ride with me!


End file.
